Riot’s Reviews: Joker: Folie a Deux
Way back in 2008 (feels like forever ago now) Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger took the world by surprise, simultaneously reimagining and re-establishing the role of The Joker. They weren’t the only ones in history to do so, The Joker as a character is arguably the most malleable, most memorable, most dynamic of all of the DC (and maybe even Marvel) villains. His lack of clearly defined origin story and his overall bombastic character allows a wider interpretation for new iterations and over the years we have been treated to some truly great versions of the legendary character. Not many people were thinking that we would see anything better than what Ledger had done and with his untimely death, it made it almost a certainty. Then, in 2019, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix shook up everything that we knew. Their new Joker, Arthur Fleck, wasn’t anything we had seen before or even considered. Arthur hadn’t already succumbed to insanity, he wasn’t a mobster, he wasn’t the embodiment of chaos, he was a frail, mentally ill, disenfranchised loser and the amazing thing about his story is that he wasn’t fully aware of it yet. Phoenix’ performance was gritty and passionate, putting on a show that threw a wild premise on his back and carried exasperated audiences through a compelling but troublesome message (I’ll address this later).
Then, the sequel was announced and with the announcement came interesting details that set the internet rumor machine aflame. First, Joker: Folie a Deux was going to feature another beloved DC villain: Harley Quinn, but she was being played by Lady Gaga. And second, the film was going to be a musical. This part of the announcement was apparently not so strong, as I’ve come to find out, but there’s no doubt it was in fact announced ahead of time. A musical is a major divergence from what the original did and the skepticism about Gaga’s involvement I think was reasonable. Could Joker: Folie a Deux maintain its grittiness and groundbreaking cinematography that once again redefined an undefinable character?
The answer is complicated. One thing is certain though, this is not the movie that fans of the original wanted to see and the current online ratings/box office results confirm it. A lot of the negative feedback comes from people who didn’t know they were about to watch a musical, indicating an obvious but major failing on the behalf of the advertisers. Even before my showing, the bartender (who was a huge fan of the sequel as indicated by her Harley Quinn inspired makeup) was warning patrons that it was in fact a musical. The immediate response from the couple ahead of me? “Bummer!” I might have mentioned before, but I am a huge fan of musicals and musical film adaptations (is anyone else really worried about Wicked or is it just me?). They’re not always winners of course, Les Miserables being a perfect example, but they tend to win me over easier than other films. And this is where my biggest criticism of the film comes in, this was a pretty bad musical; not terrible, but certainly not great. Maybe it’s Phoenix’s inexperience, or the fact that a lot of the tracks were just renditions of far superior songs (I’m honestly not even certain how much were original).
The transitions into each musical sequence were poorly done and toyed wildly with the lines between reality and fantasy. I understand, that was the point of the first movie and it was filmed with that intention of showing how blurry Arthur’s grasp on reality was. I just don’t think this works well with musical numbers. I think about the confused and judgmental look that comes across Flynn Rider’s face in the middle of Tangled. If people around you suddenly broke into song in real life, it’s impossible to ignore that sudden divergence from reality. Regardless of this inconvenience of consistency, the songs just weren’t very good. The pacing was consistently slow, the words were hard to understand over the terrible sound mixing, the lyrics didn’t feel fitting to any of the moments they were supposed to represent, and most egregiously, they felt repetitive. Every scene/location change ultimately devolved into a formulaic and dull sequence of quiet singing, dancing in repetitive and unimaginative ways, hitting an underwhelming crescendo, and then snapping back to whatever “reality” they just left. The sheer number of songs was enough to force the audience to tune out and the tracks would often suddenly interrupt really intense scenes of dialogue and emotionally charged, quality acting. It was frustrating.
The decision to make the film a musical wasn’t at all its true bane, it was making a sequel that did nothing but rehash the events from the first movie and set that to music. It’s a hard sell to the general public to sit through a musical in the first place, but to make it a two hour and ten minute recap on top of it is egregious. They could have easily made a movie where Arthur gets out, hooks up with Harley Quinn and proceeds to throw Gotham into chaos, all sequenced by music. By the film’s ending, you understand why they didn’t do this, that is not the arc of Arthur Fleck, and it’s not the point of his story. But they didn’t add anything to the point, but instead directed audiences right back into the awful messaging of the first film.
As far as I’m concerned, everything ties back into one basic problem: villains don’t need sympathy stories. Modern cinema has a sick fascination with this idea, where a villain’s origin story is designed to give them a sort of “emotional free pass” to be terrible people and to do terrible things. Arthur Fleck isn’t a monster who murdered five people in the course of a couple days, he’s a misunderstood victim of the oppressive system that failed to see just how special he really was. I’m all for compelling villain origins, I’ve certainly made the case multiple times about just how essential they are to a story, especially one like this. But these films don’t have anything to counteract the depravity that happens, there’s no contrast or hope, only miserably depressing nihilism. Fleck’s story is a rough one to be sure, grounded in real life disparities for the poor or mentally disabled. Here’s the rub though, for every Arthur Fleck there are hundreds more people out there refusing to succumb to the beat downs of life (not the intangible and undefinable monster that is modern day “oppression”). What good comes from trying to “justify” Fleck’s terrible actions? I’m not saying what happens to him is right or good or reasonable, but to say his actions have any redemptive qualities to them is a farce and I’m kind of tired of seeing that narrative get played out. No, Thanos was not right, Cruella Deville was and always will be a monster, and no, Arthur Fleck wasn’t justified in what he did.
Because I can’t spoil the ending, I’ll say I appreciated the films’ conclusion (although they made some asinine references to future villains that made my eyes damn near roll into the back of my head) and I ended up being fairly satisfied with how Fleck’s arc wrapped up. The film benefits from some really incredible set design and cinematography that I think would be positively acclaimed had it not been linked to frustratingly dull musical numbers. Phoenix, for all his faults as a singer, still put on a pretty brilliant performance much like he did in the first film. And while Gaga expectedly brought her “A” game to the vocals, the character’s lackluster story and overall dull chemistry with Phoenix did too much damage to justify. When all is said and done with this one, it seems everyone (and myself) were left asking the same questions: “Did this really need to be made?” “Who was this made for?” and finally, “Why mess with a good thing?”
Riot’s Rating: 5/10: It wasn’t as bad as online forums would lead you to believe, but when you can imagine a world where it would have been better had the film never been made, you know it was a pretty dramatic miss. As much as I didn't care for the messaging behind the original film, its quality far surpases its sophmore, and hopefully final, entry.
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